Religion and Politics

The film based on Thomas Frank’s 2004 book What's The Matter With Kansas? is a subtle yet revealing portrait of the religious right and how it continues to influence politics in this region of the country.

It’s an important film that could have been made in Oklahoma as well as Kansas. It was shown last weekend at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. Frank was in Oklahoma City and answered questions after the Saturday’s showings. I saw the film Sunday.

The documentary film is not confrontational in, say, the tradition of Michael Moore’s movies. Instead, it allows the main characters—some of whom are quite likable—to define themselves without any director's irony or intrusion. Many of the film’s characters are members of a religious right movement that focuses on anti-abortion and anti-homosexuality protests. The self-defeating results of the movement’s narrow focus becomes clear as the film ends, but director Joe Winston never intrudes with dogma.

The movie, like the book, tries to answer the question of why Kansas became such a “bastion” of conservatism despite its early radical history, which included heavy popular support for socialism. I used the word “tries” because the film never gives an explicit answer. This is not a failure of the film, but the difficult reality of trying to frame motivation. Why do these religious right folks believe like they do? What motivates them into political action? Is it a basic fear of modernity, a looming sense that they are getting left behind?

At one point in the film, a new church begins at an amusement park called Wild West World. The bifurcation of the park and church makes viewers wonder which is the more fictional, the amusement park with its dressed-up cowboys or the church members with their obsessive focus on abortion and homosexuality? But, again, the material is not presented in a heavy-handed manner. The theme park eventually goes bankrupt, and the church has to move on.

At another point in the film, a mother condemns secular universities as evil places where defenseless children lose their religious faith. Criticism of academia from the right is nothing new, but the mother’s comments come off as passionate, sincere and even caring. She’s not a stereotype. She really believes it.

Frank’s book and the movie are especially relevant to progressives in Oklahoma. The state has become increasingly conservative over the last three decades or so, and Oklahoma has several religious-right politicians who focus on cultural issues, such as abortion, to win votes.

For example, here’s a recent Salon.com piece on a new draconian abortion law passed by the Oklahoma legislature last session. I wrote about the issue last April.

What’s The Matter With Kansas? specifically documents how the religious right has politicized itself in the so-called heartland and become a powerful force in state politics. As wages remain stagnant, as millions remain without adequate health care, as unemployment rises, the religious right continues with its narrow, cultural agenda. It may have been repudiated in the 2006 and 2008 national elections, but it remains alive and well in Kansas, Oklahoma and other nearby states.

(You can order a DVD of the film here.)

A court has ruled that a Ten Commandments monument on the Haskell County Courthouse grounds in Stigler violates the U.S. Constitution and that it must be removed.

State Rep. Mike Ritze was quick to point out the decision would not affect the Ten Commandments monument that will soon be installed at the Oklahoma Capitol in Oklahoma City, but the fact remains clear such monuments here and elsewhere will continue to draw legal challenges.

Ritze, a Broken Arrow Republican and an ordained Southern Baptist Church deacon, sponsored the bill last legislative session allowing a privately funded Ten Commandments monument at the Capitol. Gov. Brad Henry signed the bill into law.

In the Stigler case, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the Ten Commandments monument violated the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause, which states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The monument has been on the courthouse grounds since 2004.

The American Civil Liberties Union and Haskell County resident John W. Green brought the lawsuit challenging the legality of the monument.

The ruling dealt with what it saw as the “religious motivation” of Michael Bush, who pushed to erect the monument, which has the Ten Commandments on one side and The Mayflower Compact on the other. (You can read the full ruling here.) The ruling stated:

…the reasonable observer in this case would be aware of the nature and history of the Haskell County community, the circumstances surrounding the Monument’s placement on the courthouse lawn, its precise location on the lawn and its spatial relationship to the other courthouse monuments, and also the Haskell County community’s response to the Monument. In particular, the reasonable observer would be aware of Mr. Bush’s religious motivation for seeking the erection of the Monument. After learning of these motivations, the Board swiftly approved its erection and allowed the project to go forward, despite being aware that there might be adverse legal consequences. And, when those adverse legal consequences did in fact materialize in the form of Mr. Green’s lawsuit, the Board seemingly did not hesitate to stay the course, electing to maintain the Monument without clarifying its purposes in doing so. Further, although the Monument ultimately also was inscribed with the Mayflower Compact, the Board approved the Monument with the understanding that it would be inscribed only with the Ten Commandments.

Here is the Mayflower Compact as it reads on the monument, according to the ruling:

In the name of God, Amen.

We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord, King James by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland king, defender of the faith, ect. [sic], having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northernparts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.

In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape-Cod the 11 of November, in the year of the reign of our sovereign lord, King James, of England, France, and Ireland the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Domini 1620.

Supporters of the Ten Commandments monument slated for the capitol have been adamant that it doesn’t represent religious intrusion. They say the monument deals with historical aspects of the law and will be patterned after a similar monument displayed at the Texas Capitol in Austin. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Texas monument doesn’t violate the Constitution.

But the Texas monument was installed in 1961 and is just one of several monuments and historical displays throughout the capitol. Will Oklahoma’s new monument fall under the narrow confines of the 2005 court ruling? Will the ACLU file a lawsuit? Should taxpayer money be used to defend the monument?

Is Oklahoma’s corporate power structure ever going to fight against the right-wing religious folks who consistently embarrass the state with their absurd protests against evolutionary theory and their disingenuous attempts to allow the teaching of creationism in schools?

Surely, the state’s power brokers can see how much damage these people do to the state’s image. This, in turn, hurts basic economic development.

Perhaps we should ask these questions: What is the symbiotic relationship between big corporations in Oklahoma and the religious right? Do these corporations cultivate the religious right in order to maintain the state’s conservative political culture, which then rewards them with tax breaks and less business regulations? If that’s true, then certainly there’s an eventual downside in terms of financial development and population growth. Have we reached it here in Oklahoma? Perhaps it doesn't matter to large energy companies here, but other companies and small businesses need customer growth. The state's national image is important to that growth.

These are larger questions, but what we do know is twice this legislative session conservative politicians have introduced measures attacking the theory of evolution, a theory which is as much as a fact as the theory of gravity.

First, state Sen. Randy Brogdon (R-Owasso) introduced a bill that would have allowed teachers to present arguments against evolution (i.e., creationism, wink, wink). The bill, which was defeated in a committee, was seen by many as a way to get intelligent design rubbish in the state’s classrooms. Intelligent design, which argues a designer created the world, is simply a disguised version of creationism. It’s religious subterfuge.

Brogdon’s bill claimed evolution theory is controversial, but it’s only controversial on religious grounds for some people, not scientific grounds. Evolutionary theory, which argues life forms evolve or change through the years, is open for scrutiny, and anyone can try to disprove it. But it has never been disproven. Never.

Then, another legislator, state Rep. Todd Thomsen (R-Ada) filed a resolution criticizing the appearance of noted evolutionist and retired Oxford University professor Richard Dawkins on the University of Oklahoma campus. The resolution claims Dawkins’ views “are contrary and offensive to the views and opinions of most citizens of Oklahoma.” I’m unsure of this bill’s status, but we do know that Dawkins made fun of Thomsen’s bill during his Friday speech, and the YouTube video of it, posted above, is making its way around the Internet.

So it goes in Oklahoma, and there’s no end in sight.

But fortunately there’s help from the outside for those fighting to uphold the scientific method. Dawkins donated $5,000 to Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education, which has diligently opposed attempts to bring creationism into science classrooms.